


Seek Your Fortune Amidst Ghosts

by Artemis1000



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Bloody Kisses, Hand Jobs, Hurt No Comfort, Love/Hate, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Dragon Age II Quest - All That Remains, Resentment, Resolved Sexual Tension, Self-Hatred, Sibling Incest, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-24 18:34:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20710619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Now Carver scowls in the face of Garrett’s ever more forced jokes, silent and looking as unforgiving as he feels, and he watches the infuriating smile pasted to his mouth fade away fraction by fraction. He relishes in each little bit that Garrett’s masks are washed away under the deluge of his own words until all that remains is his brother looking pale and wan, stricken – just like any other man who has just lost the last family member he cared to be related to. He no longer looks this larger-than-life figure he inevitably ends up being to everyone who has ever met him.





	Seek Your Fortune Amidst Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykingdomstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/gifts).

Maker knows it’s not the first time they face off but it almost feels like it after the long time they have painstakingly avoided another.

It’s not grief that has finally brought Carver to his brother’s house – a house he refused to step foot in for years. There’s just something very akin to it that churns and burns within him, that had finally driven him to break the silent standstill. The standstill had been better, for both of them. It had been a blessing and sorely needed. For a few years of self-enforced distance, it had let them pretend they were just like any other pair of estranged brothers.

Now Carver scowls in the face of Garrett’s ever more forced jokes, silent and looking as unforgiving as he feels, and he watches the infuriating smile pasted to his mouth fade away fraction by fraction. He relishes in each little bit that Garrett’s masks are washed away under the deluge of his own words until all that remains is his brother looking pale and wan, stricken – just like any other man who has just lost the last family member he cared to be related to. He no longer looks this larger-than-life figure he inevitably ends up being to everyone who has ever met him.

Now he’s right down here in the mud with Carver and if it hadn’t taken them losing everything, maybe he could be happy about it.

Carver unfolds and refolds his arms, crossing them the other way, and Garrett’s eyes follow the motion. They linger on his upper arms before they flicker down to the Templar symbol emblazoned on his chest. He looks momentarily stricken; his Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps.

“Are you happy now?” It is Carver who breaks the silence. He never had the patience to punish Garrett with silence, much as he knows it to eat away at him. Even Carver’s sulky silences used to be loud. The Gallows have taught him to endure silence but confronting Garrett, he doesn’t feel much like the man he has become. It’s only fitting he should forget the lessons he has learned. At least Garrett’s eyes widen most satisfyingly, his mouth opening to protest before he pinches them into a thin line instead and Carver feels a sickly sweet flutter low in his belly.

“Are you?” he prods, stepping towards Garrett. “Is this what you wanted?”

They’d been facing another from opposite ends of that ridiculously fancy sitting room in the Amell estate, Garrett still standing by the desk he had been working on when Carver surprised him, Carver barely a step into the room.

Now he crosses that vast empty space between them and watches Garrett bristle.

“Now look, Carver,” he starts, trying for that sensible, that so very _diplomatic_ tone of voice that he uses when he is out there saving Kirkwall all over again.

A growl works its way up Carver’s throat. “How dare you?” The words slip out before he can even think about them. “Don’t treat me like some random guy on the street begging you to find their grandpa’s ratty old heirloom trousers.”

Garrett freezes and his lips twitch, a wavery little chuckle wrenching its way free before he can stop it. “Kirkwall’s been holding out on heirloom trousers, I only ever find ripped ones.”

Carver has nearly crossed the chasm now and with Garrett joking, if shakily, everything in him wants to fall back into the same old habits from before he donned this armor and left. They could bicker and make terrible jokes and pretend they’re blind to all the things that are hurting them – all the ways in which they are hurting another.

Except he can’t. Except he doesn’t want to. Carver has spent years fantasizing about kissing these smug lips bloody and for the last three years at least, he’s no longer stopped in terror when he caught himself. Still felt shame, of course, but it had been safe enough to want something so completely out of his reach. There was no harm in it, as long as he kept quiet and made sure not to moan the forbidden name out loud.

As Carver comes to a halt just at arm’s reach from Garrett, he rallies himself, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders. He’s no longer smiling – neither that amiable, diplomatic smile nor the cocky smirk Carver so often wanted to bite from his lips. “You’re right, it’s just the two of us now,” he agrees, hands spread in surrender that doesn’t mesh with his stance, which is all braced for battle. “But I never wanted that.” He swallows again and looks away first. “Not like this.”

“Not like this,” Carver echoes mockingly and takes another half step towards Garrett. “It’s funny how you were so sorry for letting Bethy die and now you’re so sorry for letting Mother die but for all everybody in Kirkwall thinks you’ve got the sun shining out of your ass, you can never save anyone who matters, can you?”

Garrett flinches as if he’d been slapped and then he’s grinding away at his teeth but he’s still not protesting. Carver suddenly remembers how he had looked whenever Mother spoke of Bethany. Carver had been more furious with her than with Garrett then. He scowls, studying the banister of the staircase leading upstairs; it looks like it’s got messages carved into the wood but he’s too far away to make them out. He wonders who has left these messages, then wonders why he still cares, then finally reminds himself that his own inability to stop caring has always been half the problem. The other half… Well.

It’s Garrett who crosses what distance remains and through this, forces Carver’s eyes back onto him. He is so very, achingly solid in his presence and so very right there. It’s impossible to look away. It had always been impossible to look away, especially once he figured out that Garrett was looking, too. “If you’ve come to take your revenge,” he says, “I’m right here. Nothing’s stopping you, Carver.”

They are close now, chest to chest and face to face, Carver feeling like a turtle in his heavy plate mail while Garrett’s stupid house clothes make him look deceptively sleeker than Carver knows him to be. Garrett’s so close by now, he can feel his warm breath caress his face with every huffing exhale. This time it is Carver who swallows hard and then he’s fighting the urge to run and he feels flushed and hot. His stomach is twisting so bad it leaves him near physically sick.

But he doesn’t budge.

“Stop being stupid.”

“Is that not what you’re here for?” Garrett prods, and there’s that smirk curling the corners of his lips again. Carver grits his teeth against it, he will never be able to decide whether he finds the smirk or the politic smile more infuriating when aimed at him. “So you’re saying you’re just here to shout at me and kick over a chair?”

At his sides, he balls his hands into helpless fists. “You’re so fucking stupid, Garrett.”

Garrett softens. He can see him soften right there, dropping the masks – most of them, anyway – and then it’s just the man he has desired for far too long and somehow, that makes it worse. Somehow he knows Garrett knows this. They’re both good at hurting another. “Only sometimes.”

There’s suddenly a lot of harm to wanting things you can’t have when they are right in front of you and you only need to reach out to seize them.

“I hate you!” Carver snaps and he is pretty sure he means it, too. Maybe he loves Garrett, maybe he wants him, but he has never had any doubts about the resentment choking him.

Garrett looks at him intensely, his brows furrowed as if he’s trying to puzzle out some confounding secret. Maybe that’s what Carver is to him, Maker knows they’ve never figured out how to speak the same language. He reaches for him slowly, one hand lifting to his cheek but not quite making skin contact, just hovering.

If he permits Garrett’s touch, it is going to be gentle. Carver knows it will be, he can read the intention in the pained lines on Garrett's face. All that heroic pained conflict and yearning is written on his stupid kissable, punchable face because Garrett has never been able to hide a thing from Carver except when Carver truly needed to figure him out. Carver's stomach churns and he finds himself looking down again, even as everything in him bristles at being the first to break.

His front teeth catch on his bottom lip. He bites down hard enough to hurt, though not to draw blood.

"Carver, we should..." Garrett begins and it figures it would be that sensible tone of voice again. Like on cue, it makes Carver bristle - how he hates it and that Garrett keeps using it, it's almost as if he knows how much it grates when he acts as if Carver isn’t even worth his anger.

Before Garrett’s hand can touch his cheek, Carver’s fist is wrapped around a handful of his shirt, twisting the collar tight. He smashes his lips into Garrett’s and silences him before he can mutter another infuriatingly placid word.

Garrett is stunned and slack against him, his lips parted to permit Carver entrance but not responding. A second passes, another, a third, and Carver’s hold on Garrett’s collar tightens further as the queasy feeling in his stomach is swept away by pure ice-cold dread. He yanks away, his face burning, his eyes burning, too, and wipes at his mouth with his free hand. He can still taste Garrett but once again, he can’t look at him. He looks at their boots; his are shined and Garrett’s scuffed. The tears burn hotter in his eyes, blurring the view.

“Don’t.” Garrett’s hand closes around his wrist, not trying to wrench his hand away, no, not at all, he is rather holding him in place with an iron grip. He has always been far stronger than a mage has any right to be. And he still sounds so infuriatingly reasonable. “Don’t run away from this, too.”

“What?!” Carver bristles and aches and bristles some more and more than anything, he wants to release Garrett’s stupid collar so he can punch him. “I’ve never run from…!”

It’s as far as he gets before a pair of now almost familiar lips smash into his own as harshly as he had before and there’s Garrett’s tongue sliding against his own and it feels as if a dozen bolts of Chain Lightning are shooting through him at once. Hot and cold run through him and it all centers on that one single point where Garrett and he are connected. For once, just once, he doesn’t stumble or falter or make a fool of himself, left fumbling in Garrett’s wake while the only Hawke that matters strides ahead. In this, at least, he keeps pace.

They bite their way through a kiss and through another, and he presses Garrett back against his desk. Garrett slips onto the desk, legs readily parting for Carver to step between them. There are eager hands on him, ripping and tugging but finding very little skin to touch with all that plate mail and leather he is covered in, and growing ever more frustrated with it, while Carver has a much easier time with the clothes Garrett wears.

Later, lying in his bunk in the Gallows with a hand wrapped around his cock, he will remember it in flashes.

Garrett’s beard scratches against Carver’s smooth skin. He hooks a leg around Carver’s waist at some point, trapping him, holding him close as if he needs to, as if he is still afraid Carver will leave. His teeth are sharp and then sharper still when they tear on his lips – accidentally on purpose, he thinks, and he would be annoyed except Garrett growls in pleasure as he licks blood from his stinging lips and it shoots straight to Carver’s groin and everything that isn’t getting Garrett to make that noise again pales in comparison.

Garrett is hard against him and unashamed in thrusting into his hand. He bares his throat and lets Carver’s blood-smeared lips leave marks on his unblemished skin – but not without taking his own due. He does nothing without taking his due, without leaving a mark for each one he permits, stealing a kiss for each one granted, burning himself into his flesh with every touch. Carver’s armor protects him even now and leaves far too little skin to touch – but Garrett doesn’t need to touch bare skin to leave marks that won’t fade no matter how much time passes.

His hands are firm and deft when they slip under his Templar skirts, just moments after Carver’s own hand has slipped into the invitingly loose trousers Garrett wears and won a high-pitched needy keen from him. It figures, even now Garrett will seek to outshine him without even trying at all. He strokes Garrett’s cock firmly, his grip tight enough he thinks – he hopes – it hurts and swallows Garrett’s moans in kisses that still carry the aftertaste of blood.

Garrett’s touch is light, almost teasing. He laughs when Carver bucks and grinds his cock into his hand, desperate for more and for pain and pleasure and no, really, just for more of Garrett because that’s what it all comes down to.

In hindsight, he won’t be surprised that though Garrett barely needs to exert any effort at all, it is still he who makes Carver come first.

He won’t even be surprised that Garrett looks graceful and beautiful as he shudders his release under him, that he looks so devastatingly pretty in his pleasure while Carver just feels clumsy and oafish in his own. Garrett is still spilling the last spurts of his seed over Carver’s fingers when he is already starting to become aware of being cold and clammy and the sticky wet stain on his skirts.

He stumbles back from Garrett while he is still catching his bearing. Trying and failing to catch his breath, with half a step’s distance between them, he looks at him – finally, _really_ looks at him. All this time, he was so busy trying not to look at Garrett or not to see him even when he was looking, it jolts through him like another electric shock now that he is looking.

There is so much to him, from the tips of his tousled hair to the flush on his cheeks to his raw lips, there is the way he brings a hand to these lips that is still glistening wet.

It’s everything he has fantasized about and so much more, and he’s gotten it right here in this house that Garrett has bought with money he didn’t need Carver to earn, where he has built a life that Carver has no place in.

Suddenly, these palatial walls feel like they are closing in.

Suddenly, he only feels cold and wrong.

He smooths out his skirts, beneath he is feeling the damp of his underclothes rubbing against his too sensitive cock.

“Coming here was a mistake,” he hears himself say. The ground underneath his feet doesn’t feel quite solid. It’s wobbly, just like his legs.

At least Garrett looks like his world isn’t quite solid, either. He opens his mouth and closes it, and finally nods. His face is carefully blank. “That could be.”

Could? There is no could left after what they have done. There is, however, hysterical laughter bubbling up in Carver at the mere idea that there could still be room for doubt about the mistake they have made – he doesn’t let it spill over.

“Yeah. Right. I’ll just…” Right. Back to stumbling over his words. He clenches his jaw. “I’ll just…”

His eyes won’t tear themselves away from Garrett. He’s still perched on that cursed desk. He hasn’t moved yet. He doesn’t look ashamed or half as uncomfortable as Carver feels either and if that isn’t just the most unsurprising thing in the world.

He could stay, he thinks for a moment. Just for an hour or two. Maybe they’d even talk. Maybe, and he desperately, shamefully hopes for it, maybe they would forego talking altogether. They never had much luck with talking anyway. Maybe Garrett would take him upstairs to his fancy new bedroom with a fancy new bed and fuck him like Carver has been fantasizing about every damn night while he laid in his lumpy bunk bed in the Gallows and dreamed of things which were safe to dream about because they would never happen anyway.

He could stay, but they would speak. Garrett always tries to talk, he can’t help himself. Then they would say one thing and another, and they would be reminded why it’s better for both of them if they don’t talk.

“I’ll just,” he starts a third time but this time Carver doesn’t let himself hesitate, nor does he give Garrett the chance to protest.

He turns around on his heel and walks out, leaving behind Garrett on the desk in his fancy, empty house full of ghosts. He doesn’t look back – he doesn’t want to know if Garrett is watching him leave.


End file.
